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The situation that myself and many of my work colleagues have found ourselves in, is regarding private land, parking tickets.

We all work in Meadowhall shopping centre.

Some time ago there was signs put up in the (non paying and no time limit) customer car parks. The signs stating on duty staff members were no longer permitted to park in the shopping centre car parks, we are to park on waste land that is separate from the actual shopping centre.

Signs read as follows.....

This car park is private land and is for the use of Meadowhall shopping centre customers only
No parking for on duty staff members, contractors or park and ride users.

Parking terms and conditions
You agree to pay a parking charge of £80 if you....

-park in a non designated area
-park outside of the marked bays
-park in these areas as an on duty staff member
-park causing an obstruction to other uses
-park in a parent and child bay without a child under 5 accompanying you
-park in a value badge bay without displaying a valid blue badge in conjunction with the blue badge scheme
-use the car park for any other reason other than shopping in Meadowhall shopping centre
-park your vehicle and leave the site by other means

The area that they designated us is not big enough for all the staff members to actually get a space and the area used is a good 15 minute walk away. The area is dark and not seen as a safe area for us to be walking to and from alone. There as been incidences in this area of Women/girls getting approached by strange men, vehicle's getting damaged and staff members injured due to trips and falls on the rubble surface of the car park.
Due to this many of us have ended up parking in the shopping centre carparks, resulting in CPPlus giving us PNC Notices.

We are all now facing unpaid parking ticket chargers for sums of £120 up to £18,000+

I have read through the newbies thread and started my first appeal.
I appealed to CPPlus they refused to drop the charge but sent me a POPLA code.

I am heading in the right direction with something like this as my POPLA Appeal? ....

Dear sir madam

As the registered keeper I appeal on the following grounds
Cp plus's parking charge notice is not compliant with the protection of freedoms act 2012 (POFA) due to the date and the wording used. Under schedule 4, paragraph 4 of the POFA, an operator can only establish the right to receive any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of a vehicle if certain conditions be met as stated in paragraph 5, 6, 11 and 12. CPPlus have failed to fulfil the conditions which state than an operator must have provided the keeper with a notice of keeper (NTK) in accordance with paragraph 9, which stipulates as mandatory, a set time line and wording :-

The notice must be given by—
(a) handing it to the keeper, or leaving it at a current address for service for the keeper, within the relevant period; or
(b) sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.

The applicable section here is (b) because the Parking Charge Notice/NTK that I have received was delivered by post. Furthermore, paragraph 9(5) states:

’’The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended’’

The Parking Charge Notice sent to myself as Registered Keeper was produced in their offices showing a purported ‘date issued’ which was already past the 14 days by which, under statute, it had to be in my hands/served. Even if they had posted it that day it would be impossible for the notice to have been delivered within the 'relevant period' as required under paragraph 9(4)(b).

In fact, this NTK arrived At lease 47 days after the alleged event. This means that CP Plus have failed to act within the 14 day relevant period. Furthermore, it is clear that CP Plus know this because they have made no reference to ‘keeper liability’ or the POFA.

So, this is a charge that could only be potentially enforced against a known driver and there is no evidence of who that individual was, which brings me to my next point below.

4. The operator has not shown that the individual who it is pursuing is in fact the driver who may have been potentially liable for the charge

In cases with a keeper appellant, yet no POFA 'keeper liability' to rely upon, POPLA must first consider whether they are confident that the Assessor knows who the driver is, based on the evidence received. No presumption can be made about liability whatsoever. A vehicle can be driven by any person (with the consent of the owner) as long as the driver is insured. There is no dispute that the driver was entitled to drive the car and I can confirm that they were, but I am exercising my right not to name that person.

In this case, no other party apart from an evidenced driver can be told to pay. I am the appellant throughout (as I am entitled to be), and as there has been no admission regarding who was driving, and no evidence has been produced, it has been held by POPLA on numerous occasions, that a parking charge cannot be enforced against a keeper without a valid NTK.

As the keeper of the vehicle, it is my right to choose not to name the driver, yet still not be lawfully held liable if an operator is not using or complying with Schedule 4. This applies regardless of when the first appeal was made and regardless of whether a purported 'NTK' was served or not, because the fact remains I am only appealing as the keeper and ONLY Schedule 4 of the POFA (or evidence of who was driving) can cause a keeper appellant to be deemed to be the liable party.

The burden of proof rests with the Operator to show that (as an individual) I have personally not complied with terms in place on the land and show that I am personally liable for their parking charge. They cannot.

Furthermore, the vital matter of full compliance with the POFA was confirmed by parking law expert barrister, Henry Greenslade, the previous POPLA Lead Adjudicator, in 2015:

Understanding keeper liability
“There appears to be continuing misunderstanding about Schedule 4. Provided certain conditions are strictly complied with, it provides for recovery of unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the vehicle.

There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time. Unlike, for example, a Notice of Intended Prosecution where details of the driver of a vehicle must be supplied when requested by the police, pursuant to Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a keeper sent a Schedule 4 notice has no legal obligation to name the driver. [...] If {POFA 2012 Schedule 4 is} not complied with then keeper liability does not generally pass.''

Therefore, no lawful right exists to pursue unpaid parking charges from myself as keeper of the vehicle, where an operator cannot transfer the liability for the charge using the POFA.

This exact finding was made in 6061796103 against ParkingEye in September 2016.

Sorry I!!!8217;ve not logged in for some time, Ive been busy enjoying taking CP Plus head on with some great success thanks to everyone here that helped me in the past!

Myself and my work friends have now successfully appealed and won around 40 POPLA appeals.

I am happy to say that who ever has appealed and won is nolonger receiving parking fines or letters from debt collectors.

Also what I am finding rather strange is, now when contacting CP Plus for popla codes regarding parking tickets received, if we have appealed and won at popla previously they are sending us reply emails stating, there is no parking charge with that number on their system???? !!!55358;!!!56596; I think they are finally getting feed up of losing at POPLA.

Unfortunately they have now hit us hard with the SCS letter!!!8217;s, letter before claim for fines that we didn!!!8217;t appeal at POPLA, due to leaving it too late.

Can you tell me if it!!!8217;s appropriate for me to upload my letter before court here and my response or whether I should start a new thread?

however, start a new thread for anything "new" , like any other tickets that need resolving and arent to do with this mess you find yourselves in

for example, if one of you has an ongoing court case and need help with it , start a new thread and link this thread into the post for background info

hope this helps ?

Newbies !!
Private Parking ticket? check the 2 sticky threads by coupon-mad and crabman in the Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking Board forum for the latest advice or maybe try pepipoo or C.A.G. or legal beagles forums if you need legal advice as well because this parking forum is not about debt collectors or legal matters per se

Myself and my work friends have now successfully appealed and won around 40 POPLA appeals.

I am happy to say that who ever has appealed and won is nolonger receiving parking fines or letters from debt collectors.

”

It's nice to see CP Plus getting a pasting at POPLA. It's cost them over a grand to go to POPLA for those 40 PCN's.
What were the reasons for POPLA upholding the appeals, the same as yours, CP Plus didn't provide a copy of the NTK in their evidence pack?

“

Unfortunately they have now hit us hard with the SCS letter!!!8217;s, letter before claim for fines that we didn!!!8217;t appeal at POPLA, due to leaving it too late.

Can you tell me if it!!!8217;s appropriate for me to upload my letter before court here.

”

Does the letter from SCS Law have any more pages other than the ones you have posted?
I can't see any mention of it being a 'Letter before Claim' or similar on the 1st page.
Are they asking you to pay and if so, who are they asking you to send payment to?

so actually DRP letters on pimped out letterheads, not actual solicitor letters

Newbies !!
Private Parking ticket? check the 2 sticky threads by coupon-mad and crabman in the Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking Board forum for the latest advice or maybe try pepipoo or C.A.G. or legal beagles forums if you need legal advice as well because this parking forum is not about debt collectors or legal matters per se

BTW what happened re the small court claims the other girls received in June. Are they still ongoing?

In the meantime I would email the DVLA with a request for information about your car.
You can request from them the dates when CP Plus accessed your details. It's important because they should have made a seperate application to the DVLA for each parking charge.

As the Registered Keeper of the above vehicle, I would like to request the following information.

Could you please give me details of who and when any company, organisation or individual has requested my personal details from the DVLA with regards to the vehicle and the date when the DVLA provided the keeper details.

Please provide me these details for the period 1st January 2017 to 1st December 2017 inclusive.
.
I understand there is no charge for this information and look forward to your reply.

@Robin - you!!!8217;re giving absolutely super support to Pinklady and her colleagues.

We cannot provide you with a silver bullet to get you out of this. You have to be in for the long run, and need to involve yourself in research and work for you to get rid of this. It is not simple. We will help, but can't do it for you.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

Like most on here I really do detest PPC's but this particular case has particularly annoyed me.

The fact that Meadowhall/British Land through their agents CP Plus are persecuting workers and trying to extract large sums of money from them for the 'crime' of merely parking in the centre's car parks that you, me and anyone else can park in without cost or restriction is totally wrong.

The designated staff car park is well away from the centre. For some working at the furthest point of the centre it can be 1 kilometre away, involving a walk along poorly lit streets.
I wouldn't want any female member of my family having to walk to the car park late at night.

I'm doing what I can but hopefully along with the help of the more experienced forum members such as yourself we can help the workers in their fight.

Thanks for the link to the Prankster's blog. On reading it the DVLA say they can't send out the information by email due to the DPA and such a request needs to be made in writing. Do you know if that's still the case?

Thanks for the link to the Prankster's blog. On reading it the DVLA say they can't send out the information by email due to the DPA and such a request needs to be made in writing. Do you know if that's still the case?

”

Sorry, can!!!8217;t be certain. I know you can!!!8217;t get it via a phone call, but by letter v email, I!!!8217;m not clear. Others might know?

We cannot provide you with a silver bullet to get you out of this. You have to be in for the long run, and need to involve yourself in research and work for you to get rid of this. It is not simple. We will help, but can't do it for you.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

I am in the same situation as pinklady, I used to work at Meadowhall having left in February this year. I have just been sent a letter for a claim form from CP PLUS LTD claiming to be from county court business centre in Northampton demanding payment for a total amount of £1080 unpaid parking fines. Similar to pinklady I got some of these whilst on my day off shopping in the centre, also I have two other drivers on my insurance who also drive my vehicle and may have parked whilst shopping. I don’t know what to do regarding this as I have never responded to any of the fines before on advice from other staff in Meadowhall saying that the fines were illegal and wouldn’t get taken to court but now I am worried it may effect my future.

New thread please, forum rules/etiquette, one case one thread. But before doing so, please read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky which provides information on how to deal with this.

Have you read through Pinklady!!!8217;s entire thread? Because there are strategies in it that you should consider adopting.

With the amount of parking charges you seem to have racked up, we haven!!!8217;t got a magic solution for you.

What are those who advised you to ignore everything now doing to help you? Have you not set up some kind of workers!!!8217; task force - given the volume of workers affected and the huge amounts of money involved? What are your Union doing to help you?

We cannot provide you with a silver bullet to get you out of this. You have to be in for the long run, and need to involve yourself in research and work for you to get rid of this. It is not simple. We will help, but can't do it for you.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

I am in the same situation as pinklady, I used to work at Meadowhall having left in February this year. I have just been sent a letter for a claim form from CP PLUS LTD claiming to be from county court business centre in Northampton demanding payment for a total amount of £1080 unpaid parking fines. Similar to pinklady I got some of these whilst on my day off shopping in the centre, also I have two other drivers on my insurance who also drive my vehicle and may have parked whilst shopping. I don’t know what to do regarding this as I have never responded to any of the fines before on advice from other staff in Meadowhall saying that the fines were illegal and wouldn’t get taken to court but now I am worried it may effect my future.

I am in the same situation as pinklady, I used to work at Meadowhall having left in February this year. I have just been sent a letter for a claim form from CP PLUS LTD claiming to be from county court business centre in Northampton demanding payment for a total amount of £1080 unpaid parking fines. Similar to pinklady I got some of these whilst on my day off shopping in the centre, also I have two other drivers on my insurance who also drive my vehicle and may have parked whilst shopping. I don’t know what to do regarding this as I have never responded to any of the fines before on advice from other staff in Meadowhall saying that the fines were illegal and wouldn’t get taken to court but now I am worried it may effect my future.

The “Money Saving” advice is to nominate to the parking firm whoever was driving your car for the charges that you have been blamed for where you are being falsely accused. This will stop any more threats being made to you for these charges so you can focus on the ones where you were actually driving. It is disgusting that the parking firm are chasing you for tickets when you were not even driving the car. Something needs to be done about this so that people are not having their time wasted having to defend unenforceable PCN’s when they were never to “blame” in the first place!

The “Money Saving” advice is to nominate to the parking firm whoever was driving your car for the charges that you have been blamed for where you are being falsely accused. This will stop any more threats being made to you for these charges so you can focus on the ones where you were actually driving. It is disgusting that the parking firm are chasing you for tickets when you were not even driving the car. Something needs to be done about this so that people are not having their time wasted having to defend unenforceable PCN’s when they were never to “blame” in the first place!

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